Well this is a kick in the nuts: VST2 plug-ins

[counterparty]

There is not really an issue that happens at all right now.
The main extensions are supported by all hosts, the more esoteric ones are all optional.
The essential stuff (dealing with MIDI, files, state, time and UI) are pretty much in all hosts by this point.

That may be the case right now, but I doubt it still be the case if LV2 becomes a widely adopted standard, and the thousands plugins that are currently in other formats are ported (or new LV2 plugins created).

There is no need to spread FUD in here, thank you.

It's not 'spreading FUD' to look carefully at the merits of a format before jumping in.

[counterparty]

Just be clear, LV2 is not such a standard. Extensions are always optional never required for core functionality.

Is that by convention, or is there something that enforces this?

It's really like with PreSonus Extensions: e.g. Q: "Why do I not see the track name and host's fader-gain in the plugin's UI?" A: "Because your DAW does not support VST3 IContextInfoProvider2".

or perhaps stating that your plugin only works in a host that supports ARA.

ARA is a great example.. suppose you wanted to develop a plugin with ARA-like capabilities. Is this possible while maintaining that extensions are never required for core functionality?

[OBSOLETE160530]

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[OBSOLETE160530]

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[bero]

I didn't use the original VST2-SDK, but made my own VST2-compatible Object-Pascal-based mini-SDK purely based from public informations, which worked quite well.

Keep in mind that you are only allowed to do that if you have not signed the official VST2 SDK license in the past. By accepting that license you agreed not to re-work or reverse engineer it.

I know, that is why I never signed such agreements or contracts, because I already had an anticipation of something like that at the time, which has now also happened. Possibly it can be through the fact that I knew someone personally who worked at Steinberg and who is now a freelancer today.

Now I can be happy because of that and therefore I can continue to produce VST2 plugins carefree if I wanted to. But in the moment, my Indie-DAW project is more important than writing new VST* Plugins for me.

[ghettosynth]

Now I can be happy because of that and therefore I can continue to produce VST2 plugins carefree if I wanted to. But in the moment, my Indie-DAW project is more important than writing new VST* Plugins for me.

This of course may or may not help you when facing action from an aggressive firm. I remember when Sun was in the news over aggressive action because of the Java trademark. I don't recall whether they actually sued any coffee shops for having Java in their name, but I recall that some actions made the tech news at the time. They did send a cease and desist to Java Ranch, an educational website.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/02/03/22 ... t-from-sun

Of course, as the fine article points out, trademarks have to be protected.

Steinberg certainly has somewhat aggressive and restrictive language in their license agreement with requirements for people who've signed it in terms of advertising their logo.

https://developer.steinberg.help/displa ... guidelines

It also seems that some of the attempts to provide open source alternatives that are compatible are sensitive to avoid the VST name and use alternatives, e.g., FST.

The point being, really anyone who's flying under the radar can do anything that they want until they are no longer flying under the radar. If you've signed a license and Stienberg catches it, they may cancel your license. If you haven't signed a license and they catch it, they may never sign one with you.

[bero]

The point being, really anyone who's flying under the radar can do anything that they want until they are no longer flying under the radar. If you've signed a license and Stienberg catches it, they may cancel your license. If you haven't signed a license and they catch it, they may never sign one with you.

If Steinberg wants something from me, which isn't going to happen anyway, then Steinberg has to accept my terms, and not the other way. I myself can live without any contracts to Steinberg. And if Steinberg sues me, then they should just try it. I have two legal protection insurances (one for private and one for commerical stuff) and some good contacts with a lawyer with experiences in this special area. I'm pretty well networked there. In a nutshell: This doesn't shrug me off at all, as Steinberg is based in Germany and I am a German myself as well. In such a case, German laws would apply and German courts would have jurisdiction. Fact is, I have never signed anything from them and never will. And I will now throw the German trademark law keyword "Gattungsbegriff" into the round here, even though here it would be more audio-industry-specific.

I have recently been working on a pretty well known commercial big DAW as an external collaborator (where I do not want to mention any names here yet), although the one company knows full well that I am developing my own DAW on the side. I mention this because I have already talked to the company where I worked for about having an own VST2/3 alternative. They were not averse, but during the talks the main hurdle became clear, and that is the chicken and egg problem. What's the point of a new open plugin format if only two DAWs support it at the beginning (mine and theirs), which means that no or very few plugin developers would jump on the one new open plugin format. Such a new open plugin format would have to be supported, if at all, then directly from the beginning by very many DAWs to have any success at all. Otherwise it would be a death birth.

[bero]

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[EvilDragon]

What's the point of a new open plugin format if only two DAWs support it at the beginning (mine and theirs), which means that no or very few plugin developers would jump on the one new open plugin format. Such a new open plugin format would have to be supported, if at all, then directly from the beginning by very many DAWs to have any success at all. Otherwise it would be a death birth.

That's why LV2 is a good option, because it's not new, yet it's still open, and more than a couple DAWs support it.

[ghettosynth]

The point being, really anyone who's flying under the radar can do anything that they want until they are no longer flying under the radar. If you've signed a license and Stienberg catches it, they may cancel your license. If you haven't signed a license and they catch it, they may never sign one with you.

This doesn't shrug me off at all, as Steinberg is based in Germany and I am a German myself as well. In such a case, German laws would apply and German courts would have jurisdiction. Fact is, I have never signed anything from them and never will. And I will now throw the German trademark law keyword "Gattungsbegriff" into the round here, even though here it would be more audio-industry-specific.

Sure, but the point here is that it isn't a solution in general for most people. Not signing a contract doesn't matter with respect to copyrights and trademarks. Getting sued in the U.S. is probably a different experience than in Europe in many ways. Even if you're completely right, you can expect that it will cost you money.

[S0lo]

I just hope that something happens here that changes the course of the future so we don't come here ten years from now talking about the same dilemma. Be it LV2, wrappers, what ever.

Just look back in the this thread and see mr.ardour post about how the MMA effort in the 2000's was brought down. Saddening.

[ghettosynth]

What's the point of a new open plugin format if only two DAWs support it at the beginning (mine and theirs), which means that no or very few plugin developers would jump on the one new open plugin format. Such a new open plugin format would have to be supported, if at all, then directly from the beginning by very many DAWs to have any success at all. Otherwise it would be a death birth.

That's why LV2 is a good option, because it's not new, yet it's still open, and more than a couple DAWs support it.

Yes, the chicken an egg problem, so to speak is often not so reducible to a simple binary proposition. The point of supporting an open format that only two DAWs already support is that you are helping to move the adoption of an open standard forward. Now, whether or not that has benefit to some dev of a given size is something that they have to decide. It is a long play and it may eventually bring more benefits to those who get on board earlier rather than later.

[Dewdman42]

LV2 has at least a little momentum. Not having worked with it before, I can't say anything more about how good or bad it is..but its there, there is a bit of momentum. A few things I can think of that would increase momentum on it:

1. convince the JUCE team to include it as a plugin target, and if possible as an LV2 host also. There are a lot of JUCE plugins that could ported almost instantly that way. I know there is a JUCE fork already, but it needs to become something in the mainline up to date version of JUCE...and they would probably have "LV2 now included" pasted all over their marketing, which would also help.
2. Create super easy tutorials for using lv2vst. It seems to me that the dynamic loading version must be using reverse engineered VST2, so there could be some legality concerns with that.
3. Encourage smaller devs like KushView and BlueCatAudio to add LV2 hosting to their plugin hoster plugins. This would make it possible for people to generally use LV2 plugins in nearly any host right now today.
4. Even better would be one of you devs that has VST2 license go ahead and release a version of lv2vst (without compile time options) that actually uses a legit VST2 license..and keep it super simple and free if possible....it can just host a plugin and pass through, no fancy options.
5. Most of what I have seen out there related to LV2 so far has gone over my head in terms of setting up build environments, linux mindset, etc. In order to gain momentum we need to see some braindead simple tutorials for people that have never and will never see Linux, don't want to have to learn waf or any other new thing, no matter how awesome it is...just brain dead simple..even better if in conjunction with free tools like Visual Studio Code, Xcode, etc. there are a lot of plugin devs out there, (raising my own hand as I speak), who know just barely enough C++ to crank out a plugin..sometimes a pretty decent one even...but having to dig into a whole bunch of build technologies and making sure you have all the right libraries installed, and other complex setup issue which may seem easy and like nothing to some devs...its a complete deal breaker for a lot of others. This is one of the reasons JUCE is so popular IMHO. They take a lot of the pain away from all that stuff to just focus on writing a cool plugin. We don't need a RAD tool, just saying...somewhere half way between linux-land gotta install a buzzillion libraries and configure a bunch of config files and setup some new fancy build tool that is awesome once its setup , but first you have to set it up, etc.. those are all roadblocks for the masses. If you want momentum, the community needs to make it truly easy to get into it. BTW, I haven't tried yet, so maybe it already is easy I have no idea, just making the comment generally.
6. Roll out an SDK kit that will make it brain dead simple easy for any host to include LV2 hosting support. Make it a one day or less job and I think some hosts would consider it. Though I don't think LogicPro will ever have it...which brings me to the next point.
7. LV2AU wrapper and/or a way to easily write a plugin and build for both LV2 and AU, just like people today often do for VST/AU. If JUCE added it, that would already solve that for a lot of people.

Like I said, I think I'm gonna try to do an LV2 project soon to try it out. I feel like VST is a waste of my time at this point.

[x42]

And slowly I'm thinking if my Indie-DAW should support LV2 as well in addition to VST2 and VST3.

join https://webchat.freenode.net/#lv2 before setting out to that endeavor.

There is some current focus on making it easier to implement LV2 hosts, particularly consolidating libraries needed to do so.

[EvilDragon]

1. convince the JUCE team to include it as a plugin target, and if possible as an LV2 host also. There are a lot of JUCE plugins that could ported almost instantly that way. I know there is a JUCE fork already, but it needs to become something in the mainline up to date version of JUCE...and they would probably have "LV2 now included" pasted all over their marketing, which would also help.

https://github.com/juce-framework/JUCE/issues/123

It's unlikely JUCE will add LV2 support officially...